


Falling in Love With Love

by thatsoccercoach



Series: Falling In Love With Love [1]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-11 01:26:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17437268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsoccercoach/pseuds/thatsoccercoach
Summary: Claire is in love and everything is fine. Isn't it?





	1. One

                                                                   

I loved him. I really did.

Even if I did have to remind myself of it. I wasn’t  _really_ reminding myself. I was just…saying it to revel in it? To fully synthesize it? Yes, it was just to complete the experience.

He was everything I’d been looking for my whole life.

“You’re not getting any younger, you know,” Gladys had prodded me one day. “You’ve been engaged for nearly three years now and have yet to set a date. I know you love him and all but, c’mon. Do you  _love_ him?”

I’d rolled my eyes and walked away.

“We have work to do. Besides, you reminding me of my age isn’t going to help your case.”

“Ok, but you’re avoiding me. And I’m not kidding you. I know the guy is stable and all. He has a good income. Already has a nice house. Well, a condo. Puts money into retirement.”

I turned to glare at her indicating that talking more wasn’t actually going to help.

“He  _does_ put money into retirement, right? I mean, he’s in his late thirties. The guy is established enough that he should be doing that, okay?” She stared right back at me, unwilling to back down.

“Yeah,” I said, shortly. “He’s got enough saved for retirement. Has investments. Yes.”

It didn’t matter. I did love him.

But I didn’t  _love_ him.

 


	2. Two

                                                            

Our living arrangement was ideal. It made sense logically speaking. **  
**

He had a condo located somewhat central to both of our jobs, though we spent more time at those jobs than at home anyway. He’d asked me to move in with him when my lease had run out and I’d said yes immediately. Everyone, myself included, knew it would happen sooner or later.

We’d been together for just a few months at the time, but he had been a part of my larger circle of friends for much longer. It felt  _normal_  to move in. There wasn’t anything spectacular about it. Things just fit.

I spent the majority of my time at the hospital working. He didn’t care for the way I was gone when he came home or that I worked such long hours, but I found it fulfilling.

He worked long hours as well and often traveled to speak at conferences. I didn’t mind. He was there when I needed him to be and the rest of the time I rather enjoyed my independence. I always had.

The situation worked for both of us, plain and simple. So I moved in with him. It made sense.


	3. Three

                                                             

“You know what they say about cancer and having a baby before you’re 35, right?” a hugely pregnant Mary asked, one narrow eyebrow raised. “You’d be a great mom!” She tacked the last bit onto the end as if to justify her intrusion into my personal life. 

We were in the lounge at work, Mary reading. I was laying on a couch, forearm slung over my closed, tired, _burning_ eyes. 

“Of course I know. We all went through the same training together. It’s just,” I faltered, stumbling over the lie that was easier to tell than the truth of possible infertility was. “We’re not in a good place to try right now.”

“Oh,” she paused. “I thought I heard him talking about it with Alex at the Christmas party.” Mary’s thin shoulders lifted up then dropped back into place as she shrugged.

Our men, they _did_ talk. We’d all been part of the same circle for ages. It was why things worked as they did. They ran like a well-oiled machine, our lives.

And it was probably true. He wanted children. He wanted to hand down the family name that he could trace back through his genealogical research. Wanted miniatures of us running around the house. Wanted me to stay home and raise them.

We were trying. Had been trying. Would (probably) continue to try.

I was _willing_ to give him children, to give him what he wanted.

 


	4. Four

                                                            

Our staff party for New Year’s Eve was always a big fancy event and I didn’t have a date. He was going to be out of town working with colleagues on some massive research initiative that had him back and forth between his university and the research site. And it was a given that everyone, _literally everyone_ , came with a date. It was just what we all did. And before he left on the business trip he’d as much as told me he didn’t mind who I went with.

“Just go. You’ll have fun, I’m sure.”

I’d heard it as encouragement to be social. Maybe I should have noted the slight tinge of sarcasm.

“What about Carlos?” Gladys asked, yanking a pen from the bun on the top of her head and pointing at the man across the waiting room taking notes as he gathered info from a patient.

“He’s not coming this year. Said he’s going home to be with family. His sister just had a baby and he wants to be there when it’s christened and his dad’s health has been precarious and,” I went on and on, explaining. “Well,” I sighed. “He’s a ‘no,’ ok?” I shrugged as if it didn’t matter.

Oddly, it _didn’t_ matter much. I was much less bothered by the fact that my partner wasn’t around to accompany me than I was by the fact that I didn’t have a date for the party. It was a small difference, but one that made me puzzle a bit over my attachments.

“Oh!” she perked up. “What about…” she trailed off as she nodded at the red-headed man who was walking through the sliding doors to the entrance of the emergency room.

He wasn’t a stranger exactly. He visited his friend, on staff, and his friend’s wife nearly every day. John, the friend, worked at the hospital and Isobel had been admitted, yet again, after a horrible illness left her in a dreadfully weakened state. The not-quite-a-stranger and I had eaten together in the cafeteria a couple of times when tables were crowded and seating was difficult to find.

“He’d be,” I paused, careful not to sound too excited. “A pleasant date.”

She rolled her eyes at me. Hard.

“Yeah, you think?”

“He’ll probably say ‘no,’” I replied.

But my feel were already propelling me across the floor to ask.


	5. Five

                                                            

Margaret was going home to her family. Arthur had left early, begging one of the newer nurses to cover so he could pick his girlfriend up from the airport. The _seven_ grandchildren of our ER “queen” Glenna Fitzgibbons, had come into the emergency room to take her out for a birthday dinner. And I was going home alone again.

“I’ll walk out wi’ you.” He appeared at my side suddenly, but I didn’t startle. It was like he’d always been there and would always stay. Like he belonged there.

“You don’t _need_ to,” I shrugged. “If you’re parked in a different lot or something, I mean.”

“‘Tis fine,” he reassured.

It was.

“Do ye ever imagine yer future?” he blurted then held his hands up as if she’d cornered him at gunpoint. “I just, it’s just that my friend, weel, he said something to me.”

“What is it he said? It sounds like something serious.” I shoved my hair away from my face to look at him better as we walked through the car park.

“I’ve decided to break up wi’ my girlfriend though my family wants me to stay wi’ her,” he again blurted then quickly brought his palms up to cover his face. Into his strong hands he mumbled “I dinna ken wha’ it is about ye’ that makes me want to tell ye everything.”

He shook out his hands and continued when I kept pace with him and gave him space to speak.

“John asked could I see my future wi’ her in it.”

“Well, could you?” I asked urgently. I couldn’t explain why I needed to know.

“Yes,” he whispered.

“Then why are you breaking up with her?”

“Because,” he stopped and reached out to pull me to a stop as well. We stood close, face to face. It should have been awkward. It wasn’t.

“I can conjure up many different realities where she is in them. I can imagine the last three women I dated in my future, actually. But Claire, there’s being able to imagine a life with someone,” he held out one hand. “And _not_ being able to imagine being _without_ them,” his other hand rose to balance the two sides.

I could imagine a life with Frank. I could imagine one without him.

 


	6. Epilogue

                                                            

_Two years later…_

She sat at their kitchen table, one hand tracing the words on the page of a textbook while the other traced gentle circles on the small yet perceptible bump sheltering their unborn child.

“Here’s yer coffee then, Sassenach,” her husband set a steaming mug before her, the white of the cream swirling into the dark drink.

She looked up and there he was, inches from her nose, bending down so his lips would meet hers.

This life, this _love_ , was so different she wasn’t sure how she had missed it before. Falling in love with Jamie had been like being lit ablaze by a spark. But _being_ in love with him, falling in love more every day, was sometimes like carrying a coal from a fire that slowly warmed her from the depths of her soul.

“Thank you,” she murmured. She reached up to wrap her hand around the back of his neck, twisting her fingers into the hairs at the nape of his neck, and pulled him back down for another kiss.

“For yer wee cup of coffee? I ken you love it, love it more now that you can only have the one cup. But I hope your thankfulness doesna usually look like this,” he teased, reaching a hand of his own to settle over the top of hers, over their baby.

“Only for you.”

She was loved for who she was, not for a hope of someone she’d change into.

She had a home, not just a house, the walls of which sheltered her and kept her safe and secure.

She had, _they_ had, a baby on the way. A child of their own, of their love.

And she not only had dreams of a future with Jamie, but she absolutely couldn’t fathom one without him.

 


End file.
